Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Friday Links (1 Jul 11)

Q&A: Chase Headley (FanGraphs). Our pal David Laurila chats with the Padres third baseman. Quoth Headley: “I would rather strike out on a 3-2 count than put the ball in play on the first pitch of an at bat and make an out. I just think that makes the pitcher work a little bit harder.” [h/t reader Didi]

My journey (Dodger Thoughts). Jon Weisman, in the exquisite way that only he can, discusses the plight of following a franchise that insists on running itself into the ground at every opportunity. Yeah, it’s the Dodgers, but we’ve all been there.

A loss like this (6-0 to the Mariners, without a baserunner reaching 2B until the 9th inning) might quiet a lot of the “Don’t trade any players while we’re making a run! We could be a playoff team!” talk.

Yup, let’s see the younger players up and see what we have for the future.
Being the leader in the league for being shut-out, the Padres should be making changes now. I don’t want the Padres to make a run this year with this roster. Not nearly enough starting pitching to go deep nor the defense and offense needed to win games consistently.

re: Bartlett, he’s not hitting enough to make up for his fielding deficiency (bottom 5 in UZR). He almost cost the win today after his error yesterday opened the floodgate of Mariners’ scoring – not that the Padres was going to win that game. Today’s game was a 1-run game and his error could have cost the team a win. This season, it probably doesn’t matter but do the Padres want to contend next year with Bartlett at SS?

What to do? The Padres already committed to Bartlett until 2012, Cabrera isn’t quite ready in AAA (his away OPS is .200 lower than in Tucson, though his BB/K and OBP is fine). No SS prospects are closer to ML. I guess, we hope that Everett will improve enough by end of season that he and Bartlett can man the position adequately. It’s not like there are plenty of SS available.